‘We face the final completion of a Tory project … and the recasting of Britain – or, rather England – as a crabby, racist, inward-looking hole’
John Harris, the Guardian
2 April 2019, London
A nagging film.
4 April 2019, London
Jane tells me she bought some toilet rolls from Iceland, but discovered to her displeasure that “they’re a bit hard”.
4 April 2019, London
Operation Yellowhammer, Project Redfold, Operation Brock, Operation Kingfisher. These are the names of operations inside government to prepare for a worst-scenario departure from the EU. They sound like secret-service capers from the Cold War. Perhaps that is where we are now.
5 April 2019, London
This is a big story across all media this morning. Listening to the interview on the radio, I can't be sure that reporting it in this way tells the truth. The way I heard the player speak, and the slightly incoherent comments from him that led up to the quoted words, he might have actually have been saying that he wants to see the back of the inept governance in football that dishes out paltry fines for racism. But Danny Rose 'can't wait to see the back of crap football politics’ is not such a dramatic story. Of course, I could be wrong and the reporting might actually be a faithful reading of what he said.
8 April 2019, Winchester
This is a story in today's Morning Star.
10 April 2019, London
4 April 2019, London
Operation Yellowhammer, Project Redfold, Operation Brock, Operation Kingfisher. These are the names of operations inside government to prepare for a worst-scenario departure from the EU. They sound like secret-service capers from the Cold War. Perhaps that is where we are now.
5 April 2019, London
This is a big story across all media this morning. Listening to the interview on the radio, I can't be sure that reporting it in this way tells the truth. The way I heard the player speak, and the slightly incoherent comments from him that led up to the quoted words, he might have actually have been saying that he wants to see the back of the inept governance in football that dishes out paltry fines for racism. But Danny Rose 'can't wait to see the back of crap football politics’ is not such a dramatic story. Of course, I could be wrong and the reporting might actually be a faithful reading of what he said.
8 April 2019, Winchester
This is a story in today's Morning Star.
It continues:
Alex Gordon reminded the party’s executive committee of Jeremy Corbyn’s speech in Coventry in February last year, when the Labour leader had warned that European Union treaties and directives would block some of his party’s policies.
These included providing state aid to cutting-edge industry, extending public ownership, outlawing the super-exploitation of imported agency labour, reforming public-sector procurement rules and putting an end to outsourcing and privatisation.
Mr Gordon pointed out that EU membership and Thatcherite economic policies together had transformed Britain’s economy from one with a large industrial sector in a trading surplus with the rest of Europe into a casino economy dominated by City institutions and transnational corporations.
The latter economy is dependent upon incoming investment and British imperialism’s earnings from financial services, property and cheap labour and raw materials around the world.
Mr Gordon, a former president of transport union RMT, said: “Today, without an economic Brexit from the EU single market and customs union rules, a future Labour government would face major obstacles in its efforts to implement left and progressive policies.
“This is one reason why the City, big business organisations and many right-wing Labour MPs are so desperate to prevent an economic Brexit, even if they cannot delay or prevent a formal, political Brexit.”
Meeting on the eve of what may be a decisive week for Britain’s future relations with the EU, the CP leadership reiterated its “uncompromising opposition” to any further postponement of Brexit Day and to any second referendum designed to keep Britain in the EU instead of honouring the people’s decision made in June 2016.
Britain’s Communists also decided to call for a “people’s boycott” of any British involvement in June’s elections to the “EU Commission’s fake parliament” in Brussels.
Meanwhile, CP general secretary Robert Griffiths reported a continuing upturn in party recruitment and membership. He revealed that more than 40 people had joined so far in 2019, the majority of them aged under 33.
Alex Gordon reminded the party’s executive committee of Jeremy Corbyn’s speech in Coventry in February last year, when the Labour leader had warned that European Union treaties and directives would block some of his party’s policies.
These included providing state aid to cutting-edge industry, extending public ownership, outlawing the super-exploitation of imported agency labour, reforming public-sector procurement rules and putting an end to outsourcing and privatisation.
Mr Gordon pointed out that EU membership and Thatcherite economic policies together had transformed Britain’s economy from one with a large industrial sector in a trading surplus with the rest of Europe into a casino economy dominated by City institutions and transnational corporations.
The latter economy is dependent upon incoming investment and British imperialism’s earnings from financial services, property and cheap labour and raw materials around the world.
Mr Gordon, a former president of transport union RMT, said: “Today, without an economic Brexit from the EU single market and customs union rules, a future Labour government would face major obstacles in its efforts to implement left and progressive policies.
“This is one reason why the City, big business organisations and many right-wing Labour MPs are so desperate to prevent an economic Brexit, even if they cannot delay or prevent a formal, political Brexit.”
Meeting on the eve of what may be a decisive week for Britain’s future relations with the EU, the CP leadership reiterated its “uncompromising opposition” to any further postponement of Brexit Day and to any second referendum designed to keep Britain in the EU instead of honouring the people’s decision made in June 2016.
Britain’s Communists also decided to call for a “people’s boycott” of any British involvement in June’s elections to the “EU Commission’s fake parliament” in Brussels.
Meanwhile, CP general secretary Robert Griffiths reported a continuing upturn in party recruitment and membership. He revealed that more than 40 people had joined so far in 2019, the majority of them aged under 33.
Polly Toynbee in the Guardian
‘Peter Mitchell, a Liverpool councillor, despairs of new attitudes in the wake of Brexit. “I see society changing before my eyes, empowering the worst. This is the end product of Thatcher’s 1980s, where individualism has won out over collectivism: it’s all me and mine; a selfishness that comes from that idea that the private is better than the public.”’
11 April 2019, London
C at Headway described this as “cut-price Monet”. The people were cold and lacking personality. The compositions were photojournalistic. He painted his wife naked a lot, often in shoes. I only really liked one picture, 'Woods in Autumn’ (1939).
11 April 2019, Hackney
11 April 2019, London
C at Headway described this as “cut-price Monet”. The people were cold and lacking personality. The compositions were photojournalistic. He painted his wife naked a lot, often in shoes. I only really liked one picture, 'Woods in Autumn’ (1939).
11 April 2019, Hackney
At the bus stop last night outside Timber Wharf, Kingsland Road, a group of three youngsters on bicycles came weaving past at speed. A few minutes later I heard a sharp clack, turned around and saw a mobile phone in the centre of the road and the three cyclists disappearing back in the direction from which they had come. I turned around again and a young woman was standing next to me looking distressed. One of the cyclists had snatched her iPhone then thrown it violently to the ground. I asked the woman if she was OK, tried to console her on what must have been a jolting experience and glimpsed the condition of her phone. It was pretty wrecked, but seemingly still in one piece. The woman was shocked. Why would they steal a phone only to smash it to the ground? I suggested their task might have been to steal a specific type of iPhone, a sort of criminal commission, and that her phone did not meet the requirements. She attempted a resigned smile at this suggestion and we all got on the 243 bus, waving goodbye to B who had joined us at the bus stop. I noticed later, spying the internal security camera on the bus that she was talking on her phone. I took this as good news, that she was not too traumatised, and when she thanked us as she departed the bus, I felt slightly less disturbed by the whole event.
13 April 2019, Wallingford
“I wonder if Nigel’s failure to get elected to parliament seven times has anything to do with voters smelling his selfish priorities a mile off.”
Marina Hyde on Nigel Farage in the Guardian
13 April 2019, Wallingford
13 April 2019, Wallingford
“I wonder if Nigel’s failure to get elected to parliament seven times has anything to do with voters smelling his selfish priorities a mile off.”
Marina Hyde on Nigel Farage in the Guardian
13 April 2019, Wallingford
There is an article in the Telegraph magazine in which a 30-year-old woman is explaining why she doesn't want to have children. In the fourth paragraph she trembles with fear at being in opposition to “society's expectations of me as a woman”. I have barely reached the last of its 95 words before I have Marie-Claire Chappet cast as a sad misanthrope.
13 April 2019, Wallingford
At the museum. I was told later that photography was not permitted. Apologies.
14 April 2019, Wallingford
Food shaming. I have just read that some schools restrict the choices on the lunchtime menus for children on free school meals. They arrive at the front of the queue, make their lunch request to an adult serving them and are told, “No, you are on free school meals, you can't have that”.
18 April 2019, London
A very corny but also very sweet film. The role of women, especially motherhood, is the theme. The story itself resembles a country song in narrative. Rose is the difficult country-singing Glaswegian ex-con mother of two, Julie Walters plays her mother. Walters’ burning eyes are enough to pull a corny movie out of the mire of soft sentiment, and she don't half do class with class.
19 April 2019, Good Friday, East Croydon
Easter lunch with Margaret, Sue, Lil, Mia, me and Jane at The George pub.
20 April 2019, Sutton
A tree outside the Turkish restaurant near the train station.
21 April 2019, London
To the Pierre Bonnard exhibition at Tate Modern for an Easter Sunday treat. At an earlier visit I thought the compositions very studied and a bit photographic. This time I tried to keep my concentration on the figures and their shapes.
25 April 2019, Brighton
A quote in today's Guardian Weekly magazine from Malcolm Perera, a labourer at the scene of the Easter Sunday terror attack in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
"With my friends I carried 37 bodies and 50 bags of body parts ... the smell of blood is still on my body."
27 April, 2019, Brighton
"they [Brexiters say] won a referendum and that victory should be honoured. They have a point. The trouble is that the parliament to which they wish to return sovereignty – the very democracy they are fighting for – has not found a way to honour it".
Gary Younge, in the Guardian
13 April 2019, Wallingford
At the museum. I was told later that photography was not permitted. Apologies.
14 April 2019, Wallingford
Food shaming. I have just read that some schools restrict the choices on the lunchtime menus for children on free school meals. They arrive at the front of the queue, make their lunch request to an adult serving them and are told, “No, you are on free school meals, you can't have that”.
18 April 2019, London
A very corny but also very sweet film. The role of women, especially motherhood, is the theme. The story itself resembles a country song in narrative. Rose is the difficult country-singing Glaswegian ex-con mother of two, Julie Walters plays her mother. Walters’ burning eyes are enough to pull a corny movie out of the mire of soft sentiment, and she don't half do class with class.
19 April 2019, Good Friday, East Croydon
Easter lunch with Margaret, Sue, Lil, Mia, me and Jane at The George pub.
20 April 2019, Sutton
A tree outside the Turkish restaurant near the train station.
21 April 2019, London
To the Pierre Bonnard exhibition at Tate Modern for an Easter Sunday treat. At an earlier visit I thought the compositions very studied and a bit photographic. This time I tried to keep my concentration on the figures and their shapes.
25 April 2019, Brighton
A quote in today's Guardian Weekly magazine from Malcolm Perera, a labourer at the scene of the Easter Sunday terror attack in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
"With my friends I carried 37 bodies and 50 bags of body parts ... the smell of blood is still on my body."
27 April, 2019, Brighton
"they [Brexiters say] won a referendum and that victory should be honoured. They have a point. The trouble is that the parliament to which they wish to return sovereignty – the very democracy they are fighting for – has not found a way to honour it".
Gary Younge, in the Guardian
28 April 2018, Brighton
Two more figures I just did. I also made one of Zinedine Zidane's legendary 2006 World Cup Final decking of the Italian player Marco Materazzi.
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